Followers

Hilton Hotel Sues Over Ground Zero Noise

The Millenium Hilton has sued the Port Authority and Silverstein Properties for $8 million in damages -- contending that the nearly-all-night construction across the street at Ground Zero is just too darn loud. Never mind that touting the proximity to Ground Zero is part of the hotel's marketing plan, and that the hotel is sold out solid for the 9/11 10-year anniversary weekend.

The construction is so loud, even some Ground Zero tourists can't stand the 16 to 20 hours a day of banging and clanging -- despite the hotel's installation of 200 "white noise machines" and the complimentary earplugs that guests are offered upon check-in, the suit alleges.

Thee 569-unit, 55-story hotel "has lost hundreds of nights worth of business in a single month due to customers relocating after one night of enduring noise, including the blasting of rock, and physical vibrations resulting from the construction," says the suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

"It's pretty noisy," tourist Susan Tucker, 39, of Toronto, agreed today. "I just checked in and I took note of how noisy it was right away," she said. "I'm on the 42nd floor and I face the site. But I do have to say that I knew how close it was when I booked the hotel," she conceded. So far, she said, she planned to stay -- though she hadn't tried sleeping there yet.

Over the past five years, the blasting, clanging, and rumbling across Church Street has routinely gone on past midnight, says the hotel's new lawsuit, which targets the site's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the developer of Towers 2, 3 and 4, Silverstein Properties, Inc. Excavation and construction goes on "Virtually every day," gripes the hotel, often lasting "Late into the night and early morning hours."

"The construction activities have included hoe-ramming, rock blasting, and the dumping of large rocks and construction debris into dumpsters," says the suit. The hotel had been seriously damaged by the 9/11 attacks, but reopened in the Spring of 2003, "quickly regaining its market share and re-establishing itself as the leading hotel in downtown Manhattan," says the suit.

But the construction noise only began in earnest in 2006, the suit says -- and so too did the rampant cancellations by individual guests and groups including the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Platts and Goldman Sachs. "It isn't as bad as it was in the beginning, when they were doing the foundation," said oneGoldman Sachsemployee who's sticking it out -- Jim Davis, 47, of North Carolina. "Now they're breaking up concrete, so there's a lot of drilling.

Like many guests interviewed today, Davis said the noise is loud but expected -- and tolerable, given the alternatives of a slower rebuild or no rebuild at all. "Most people who stay here just go with it," Davis said. "We just deal with it. You want them to rebuild. Rebuilding the World Trade Center is worth the noise."

From 2006 to 2010, the blasting, rumbling and dumping of giant rocks into metal dumpsters went on seven days a week, and roughly 20 hours a day, the suit says. Beginning in 2011, construction has been reduced to six days a week, and 16 hours a day. The Hilton has negotiated repeatedly with the Port Authority, but the hotel's requests for fewer overnight hours of construction have fallen on deaf ears, the suit contends. Instead, the Port Authority especially has led the hotel on to believe the worst of the construction -- the rock blasting -- would be over any minute, only to keep on blasting, the suit contends.

"In 2009, the Port Authority promised [hotel officials] that the demolition work would be completed by the end of that year (which it was not)," the suit contends. The hotel "took the Port Authority at its word, but neither the noise nor the vibrations from the construction has subsided," says the suit.

The Port Authority footed the bill for double-paned, sound-reducing windows for nearby residential buildings, but wouldn't do the same for the hotel, the suit complains. Similarly, the Port Authority toyed with the idea of buying acoustical curtains for the hotel, but ultimately balked over the cost, the suit says.

Asked for comment on the lawsuit, a Silverstein Properties spokesman said that it's only construction at the site -- building the three towers -- is halted at 6 p.m. until the following morning.

“Silverstein Properties is committed to being a good neighbor in the Downtown community," said the spokesman, Bud Perrone. "Everything we do adheres to applicable codes. Our World Trade Center construction operations take place during regular business hours, rather than at night."

Representatives of the hotel declined to comment; the Port Authority did not return phone calls seeking comment.